You Know You’re a Liveaboard When…

We haven’t been live aboards for that long, but we’ve got enough time under our belt to have discovered some profound differences between life on land and life on a boat. Check back frequently as we will be expanding on this list as we go along!

You know you’re a live aboard when….

You have to use a flashlight to see inside of your oven.

Every item in your life does double duty.

You’re suddenly the first to jump at the chance to house sit.

You replace Facebook with AccuWeather as your most time consuming app.

You store all of your #1s and #2s under your bed (because that’s where the holding tank is!)

A long hot shower (that doesn’t require the deposit of multiple quarters) is considered a luxury.

You consider the number of errands you do based on how many cart-loads it will require you to bring to the boat.

You grocery shop multiple times a week (because the fridge will only hold so much).

2 thoughts on “You Know You’re a Liveaboard When…”

The best investment we have made so far is a Cool Blue refrigeration system. We can make ice even and keep ice cream frozen brick solid. Ed has divided our top load icebox into two sections.

We moved from a 3000 plus square foot house, 4000 if you count the unfinished carriage house part. Our 2 1/2 car garage was stuffed with my husband’s tools and vintage Fiat spider. The overhead storage was crammed as well. Our house sat on a just shy half acre fully landscaped lot. We had bubbling water features and a very large Koi pond with 25 huge koi. A couple of them were 3 feet long.

We bought our Catalina just after we were married 18 years ago. We were busy with work and taking care of the house. I wanted to sail away. Ed was more reluctant. Nothing was getting done on the boat. So why not move aboard. Necessity would be our stimulus for getting work done. I also leased out our slip until November, ensuring that we would be seeing new places while we were finishing boat projects.

Having a bigger boat would be nice (eventually that will happen). For now I want this to work. Ed, reluctantly agrees. He can’t part with any tools. He might need them. He does have a huge toolbox in storage full of car tools. He can’t part with his cars. We have 4 cars. The Fiat Abarth is here in Bellingham, the Fiat Spider is at a friend’s place on Guemes Island, my Durango is at the Port of Everett and our truck is at my son’s house in GoldBar.

Three years ago Ed lost his Network Perimeter security job. I talked him into going thru the year long marine engineering job at Seattle Maritime Academy. He now has his QMED (Qualified Member of the Engineering Department) license.

In his former life he was also a Fiat mechanic so he has been able to do everything on our boat himself. Me, I’m the chief swabby and bilge queen.
So that’s a bunch of info about us.

Ed sounds a lot like Jim in some ways! He can’t part with his tools, which reside in our storage unit. He worked as an auto mechanic in a past life as well. But, unlike Ed, he was completely on board with the idea of selling most of our stuff including our house and moving onto a sailboat.

So is your home port in Bellingham? Or Everett? How long ago did you guys move onto the boat? Are you enjoying the new lifestyle? Is Ed? I hope we have the opportunity to run into you guys on the water sometime soon!